Though the searing heat moderated a bit in some coastal areas last week, a very hot air mass has been moving up the eastern seaboard of Australia. At least 141 separate fires were burning in New South Wales on Wednesday, 31 of them out of control. The Rural Fire Service reported it was a bad sign that the fires could not be contained during the brief drop in temperatures.

The fires have grown so large that they are plainly visible in satellite imagery. The intensity of the bushfires and the unrelenting heat prompted some climate scientists to decry what they see as public indifference to man-made climate change, which is widely seen as leading to more frequent extreme weather.